We are calling for an end to harmful call-out culture across social media.

What is increasingly being normalized as "accountability" often bears little resemblance to accountability at all. Too often, it becomes public punishment, mass humiliation, and harassment carried out in the name of justice.

This petition is not asking people to ignore harm.

It is asking us to stop responding to harm by creating more harm.

The Problem
Across social media platforms, we see the same patterns repeated every day:

Public dogpiling
Mass harassment
Dehumanization
Context collapse
Permanent punishment without meaningful opportunities for repair
Algorithms that reward outrage over understanding
These dynamics rarely produce accountability.

They produce fear, silence, polarization, and psychological harm.

This Is Not "Just Online Drama"
As an autistic peer supporter, I regularly support people behind the scenes who have been directly affected by these experiences.

I've witnessed people withdraw from their communities, lose friendships, experience severe anxiety, develop depression, and in some cases express suicidal thoughts after becoming the target of coordinated online harassment.

These are not isolated incidents.

They represent a growing pattern that deserves serious attention.

Why This Matters for Neurodivergent Communities
This issue is especially urgent within autistic and other neurodivergent communities.

Many neurodivergent people already navigate:

Trauma
Communication differences
Rejection sensitivity
Social exclusion
Limited access to supportive communities
When accountability becomes public humiliation, the people most likely to be harmed are often those the community claims to be protecting.

Communities built around inclusion should not normalize practices that leave people afraid to speak, afraid to ask questions, or afraid to make mistakes.

Accountability Requires Dignity
Real accountability is not the absence of compassion.

It involves responsibility, learning, repair, changed behavior, and appropriate boundaries when necessary.

Public humiliation is something different.

When the outcome is mass targeting, dehumanization, or psychological harm, we should be willing to ask whether our methods still reflect our values.

Justice without dignity ceases to be justice.

What We Are Asking For
We call on social media platforms, community leaders, creators, moderators, and community members to:

Reject dogpiling as a legitimate form of accountability.
Preserve human dignity even when addressing harm.
Promote restorative approaches whenever possible.
Recognize that no movement or community is immune from causing harm.
Foster online cultures that encourage learning, accountability, and repair rather than fear and punishment.
Join Us

This petition is for anyone who has:

Experienced online pile-ons or public shaming.
Witnessed these dynamics harming others.
Lost someone to harassment or severe online abuse.
Believes we can build healthier online communities without abandoning accountability.
We can hold people accountable without destroying them.

We can tell the truth without dehumanizing each other.

We can choose justice that restores rather than justice that humiliates.

It's time to end harmful call-out culture.

 
Research & Context
This petition is informed by research on online harassment, restorative justice, cyberbullying, public shaming, and the experiences of autistic and neurodivergent communities.

Research consistently demonstrates that coordinated online harassment and public shaming can contribute to anxiety, depression, social isolation, and other serious psychological harms. Autistic and other neurodivergent people may face additional vulnerabilities because of communication differences, trauma histories, and higher rates of bullying and social exclusion.

For a more detailed review of the evidence, see:

👉 Call-Out Culture Harms Autistic People. The Research Unequivocally Says So